By Mike Loewe Grahamstown Correspondent
A PUBLIC debate is raging over where an R11-million educational, environmental and tourist centre in Grahamstown‘s botanical gardens should be sited.
While the park has been revitalised over the last three years, eight months have passed without a decision being made on the site for the centre.
The building‘s “preferred tenant”, the Rhodes Environmental Education and Sustainability Unit, is pushing to have the centre constructed on a small strip of land at the Rhodes University entrance to the gardens.
However, at a public meeting in the City Hall earlier in the week, residents and fellow academics spoke out against the site, saying it would be a blot on the historical precinct created by the 1835 Provost prison, the blockhouse and an early grave site.
They also said it would ruin the view of the botanical gardens from the university‘s main administration and academic block and Drostdy lawns, and it would add to traffic congestion in Lucas Avenue.
Critics, including officials from the Grahamstown History Association, Albany Museum and Rhodes Fine Arts Professor Dominic Thorburn, who sits on the Rhodes and Makana aesthetics committees, pointed out that no environmental impact assessment (EIA) had been conducted.
Environmental Education and Sustainability Unit head Professor Rob O‘ Donoghue said the land belonged to Rhodes and its use would remain educational – hence he saw no need for a “full-blown” EIA. He wanted a “specialist” to be brought in to do a study.
He claimed that sewer and power lines were already there and that the plan by architect Hilary Saunders showed the building would be “tucked behind the flower beds”, while it had open sections “so you can see through it”. “If Rhodes has a building (on the land) it is not going to have any environmental impact at all,” O‘ Donoghue added.
He said his present offices were “very tight” and a new building was “very desirable”.
He claimed there was a “time limit” on the R11-million which has been made available from the expanded public works programme via the South African National Botanical Institute.
Thorburn said the proposed site had not been placed before the Makana aesthetics committee yet.
The proposed site would have “a seriously detrimental effect on the historic vista”, he said, while the alternative site, towards Dogs Dam, was closer to the national road and the Rhodes education department. Services were also more accessible.
Another critic was environmental lawyer Jim Saunders – ironically, the husband of the architect. However, Hilary Saunders could not be at Tuesday night‘s public meeting.
Jim Saunders said: “The proposed change to the historic vista is a change in land use. The land will be used by the botanical garden, representing a change from academic to public use.
“Nobody has analysed the impact of traffic congestion,” he said.
Meanwhile, the revival of the gardens, believed to be the oldest in South Africa, has been a success story for the Makana municipality and Rhodes University.
The area has been fenced off, alien plants have been removed and ponds have been restored. The threat of crime has diminished and vagrancy and vandalism have been vastly reduced.
Although the work has been carried out under the management of Rhodes University, which has a 99-year lease on the land, the project is a joint venture.
mloewe@johnnicec.co.za